Pet care businesses combine two distinct forms of trust: access to a client’s home, and full responsibility for a living animal that’s part of their family. Both create real liability exposure that’s easy to underestimate in an industry that often starts as a part-time or informal side business before growing into something bigger.
Risk Factors Specific to Pet Care Businesses
- Injury to the pet in your care, whether from an accident, another animal, or a medical event during a walk or stay
- Property damage inside a client’s home, since pet sitting often involves regular, unsupervised access
- Dog bites or injuries to third parties, including other pedestrians, other dogs, or you yourself
- Key or access-related liability, since many clients provide house keys or entry codes to pet sitters
- Theft accusations, given the level of trust and access involved in entering someone’s home regularly
Essential Coverage
General liability insurance Covers injuries to third parties and property damage that occurs during your work — a dog bite to another pedestrian, or damage caused while inside a client’s home.
Care, custody, and control coverage This is the coverage most specific to this industry, and one general liability alone often doesn’t fully include. It covers the pet itself while it’s in your care — veterinary bills if the animal is injured, or the cost of a lost or escaped pet.
Bonding Similar to cleaning businesses, bonding protects clients against theft or dishonest acts, which matters significantly given the home access involved. Being “bonded and insured” is a common client search term and expectation in this industry.
Commercial auto insurance Relevant if you drive pets in your vehicle as part of the service, since a pet-related accident during transport may not be covered by a personal auto policy used for business purposes.
Workers’ compensation Required in most states once you have employees, relevant given injury risk from animal handling, particularly with larger or unpredictable dogs.
Care, Custody, and Control: Why It Matters Most
This is the single coverage most specific to pet care that new business owners tend to overlook. Standard general liability is built around third-party injury and property damage — not the pet itself, which is legally treated as property in most states but emotionally and financially significant to the client regardless. Without care, custody, and control coverage, a client’s veterinary bill after an incident during a walk or stay may not be covered at all.
Average Cost
Pricing depends on the number of animals handled regularly, whether you offer walking, sitting, boarding, or all three, and your claims history:
- Solo dog walker, no boarding, small client base: lower end of the cost range
- Established pet sitting business with home visits and overnight stays: moderate range, given the added home-access exposure
- Businesses offering boarding or handling larger volumes of animals daily: higher end, reflecting increased frequency of potential incidents
How to Reduce Your Risk (and Your Premium)
- Meet new clients’ pets in advance to assess temperament before agreeing to services
- Use secure key management systems rather than physical keys left with staff
- Maintain clear intake forms documenting each pet’s health conditions, behavior notes, and emergency vet contact information
- Run background checks on any employees or contractors given home access
- Bundle general liability, bonding, and care/custody/control coverage where a provider offers a combined package for this industry
Bottom Line
Pet care businesses face a layered risk that combines home-access liability with responsibility for a living animal — two things a basic general liability policy doesn’t fully address on its own. Care, custody, and control coverage, paired with bonding, is what actually closes the gap most clients are trusting you to have covered.
